Day 25: Mangaldai to Purnia

Today we traveled from Mangaldai (or Mangaldoi) in Assam, to Purnia in Bihar. The drive from Mangaldai to Purnia saw us do a minor repair to the car at the Mahindra Service facility en route. This was one of the longest drives we did in a single day. This was a drive through Bodo areas. You can read more about this drive, under Places & Events after the map below.

At night we stopped over at Purnia in Bihar. it is a very important trade route town in Bihar and off recently known for its corn farmers. HV Kumar’s highway club members directed us to a local hotel that we could stay at. People on the highway helping others on the highway, what an incredible concept!

At Kharigaon village on the highway is a statue of Jwhwlao Daimalu. Jwhwlao Daimalu is perceived to be a hero of the ancient golden period of the Bodos. Today, he is imprinted as the cause of the Bodo people’s tragedy because it is believed that he had cursed the Bodos after he was betrayed by his clans. A statue of Jwhwlao Daimalu carrying his bow and arrows can be seen pointing his hand to the sky in the village. Jwhwlao Daimalu was a senior official during the reign of King Iragdao. It is said that the brave Daimalu along with his troops had defeated the King of Burma and had brought white elephants as souvenirs of victory.

Khairgaon is also the place from where you can turn off the main NH into the Bodo territory. And towards the main city in this area – Kokrajhar.

On another, unrelated note, throughout our journey we kept hearing that teachers from Tamil Nadu and Kerala are preferred everywhere. We thought it was just people trying to make “the people with TN car number plates” happy, until we actually saw a board that advertises that fact as a selling proposition!

On this stretch, we also noticed quite a number of cars from Bhutan on the roads here.